1595-towards 1153 av. J. - C.
The “stone” Michaux
Cabinet of the medals of the National library of France
Babylonian Kudurru of the period kassite
Owing to this Hittite raid, other invaders, Kassites, gone down from the mountains from the East and the North-East, seize in their turn Babylon and found their own dynasty there.
Former people of Asia, originating in Zagros, Kassites penetrated in Mésopotamie at the beginning of thousand-year-old IIe and were established there definitively with XVIIe S. before our era. They founded a dynasty which reigned on Babylon of XVIe in XIIe front S.J. - C. and was reversed by Elamites.
Just like their predecessors, Kassites adopt the culture suméro-akkadienne and try to return to Babylon all its prestige: Agoum II, first sovereign of the dynasty, brings back the statues of the Mardouk god and his parèdre (goddess with which it is associated) Sarpanitou, removed by the Hittite ones. Around 1530, Kassites recover Sumer; again reconstituted Babylonia finds its supremacy of formerly.
But, starting from the XIV E century, badgered by Assyrie, the Babylonian kingdom declines; in 1203, king d' Assour Toukoulti-Ninourta I er takes Babylon and seizes the statues of Mardouk and Sarpanitou. Humiliated, Kassites arrive one moment to rectify the situation and drive out the Assyrians, but in 1153, following a raid élamite, their last representative is taken along captive in Elam.